Crown Point, New York
Crown Point, New York
CROWN POINT, NEW YORK. About a dozen miles north of Ticonderoga on the west shore of Lake Champlain, Crown Point was the scene of a battle between the French explorer Samuel de Champlain and the Iroquois in 1609 that marked the beginning of a century and a half of hostility. In 1735 the French began constructing Fort St. Frédéric as a permanent stone fortification and completed the main works about 1740. It replaced a temporary post established four years earlier on the east shore at Pointe de la Chevelure (later called Chimney Point). A colonial expedition in 1755 was stopped short of the point, and in response the French constructed the much larger Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga), which blocked other English expeditions until 1759. That year General Jeffery Amherst forced the French to evacuate both positions and blow up the works. He then set about building a new fort two hundred yards south of the site of Fort Frédéric that was three times the size of Ticonderoga; but with the peace of 1763 it had only a caretaker garrison. During a fire in April 1773 the magazine exploded, causing extensive damage, and the British moved most of the men and guns to Ticonderoga.
On 12 May 1775 Ethan Allen sent an expedition under Seth Warner, his second-in-command, to capture Crown Point. The nine enlisted soldiers (and their ten dependents) promptly surrendered. It became a logistical staging point during the American invasion of Canada and a forward base for Guy Carleton's counteroffensive in October and November of 1776.
In late June 1777 the forces of Burgoyne's offensive moved through Crown Point on their way south but never made it a significant base. In October, after Burgoyne's surrender, the detachment fell back to St. John's as part of the evacuation of the entire Lake Champlain-Lake George lines of communications. For the rest of the war it was visited only by patrols.
SEE ALSO Burgoyne's Offensive; Canada Invasion; Ticonderoga, New York, British Capture of.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hamilton, Edward P. Fort Ticonderoga: Key to a Continent. Boston: Little, Brown, 1964.
Roberts, Robert B. New York's Forts in the Revolution. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1980.
revised by Robert K. Wright Jr.